POTTSTOWN — Borough council Tuesday night voted unanimously to waive half the fees for the annual Halloween parade, allowing the organizers to proclaim that they would raise the remaining $2,660 somehow and that the parade will go on as planned.

It is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 24, starting at 7 p.m. on High Street.

“It’s such a good thing for Pottstown,” said Aram Ecker, speaking for the AMBUCS. “There are a lot of organizations involved and there is a lot of time put in for the costumes and floats. It’s been such a legacy and tradition in Pottstown, I don’t want to see it die.”

“The middle school marching band is so excited. They bought sweatshirts for the event. Their debut this year will be the Halloween parade and they’ve been practicing since the first day of school,” Ecker said.

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P. Richard Frantz, who was there representing the Rotary Club, indicated to council that in the previous two years since the Rotary, AMBUCS and Parks and Recreation Department took over the parade from the former sponsors, the Optimists Club, the borough has charged no fee for police services. That was the case in 2010 and in 2011, even though that parade was cancelled due to rain.

“In July, I asked (former borough manager) Jason (Bobst) if, before he left Pottstown, he could make the same arrangements for this year’s parade. He told me that he would,” Frantz told council.

As a result, the organizers had no reason to believe the $5,320 fee, primarily for police overtime costs, would be levied this year until he was informed of this by the acting borough manager, Mark Flanders, Frantz explained.

Borough Council President Stephen Toroney confirmed that looking back through the minutes of the previous year’s meetings, he could find no mention of a vote to waive the Halloween parade fee in previous years.

Councilman Travis Gery said this new information made it clear “this was not a case of the organizations sponsoring this being asleep at the switch.”

Ecker asked if perhaps the cost could be lowered by having the police volunteer for the hour of time it usually takes the parade to occur.

Under the police contract, the officers must be paid for four hours work at overtime rates, but police Capt. Rick Drumheller explained that if the officers will be in uniform, performing police duties, they must be paid in order to have insurance in place for anything that should happen.

“They are not allowed to volunteer when they are in uniform performing their job,” Drumheller said, a fact which is backed up by voluminous case law, added Flanders, who is also Pottstown’s police chief.

Other methods for finding funding were explored as well, and not just for the Halloween parade. Councilman Mark Gibson, who made the motion to waive half the fees, asked if the organizers had solicited funds from the TriCounty Chamber of Commerce.

Frantz replied that they would, but until then had not realized they needed another $5,320. He also asked why the Memorial Day Parade only requires $3,800 in costs whereas the Halloween parade costs more.

Flanders responded that more police are required for the latter because it is at night and more police are needed because they have more problems with “drinking and fights” that do not occur at the Memorial Day Parade.

Councilman Dan Weand noted that when the Pottstown Metropolitan Area Regional Planning Committee was formed, “all eight municipalities agreed that Pottstown is the hub of the region. We have three parades a year, the volleyball rumble, the BMX races, fireworks, the Soap Box Derby, we’re the host. But the burden also all falls on us.”

Weand said he would like to see a way found to spread the cost among the surrounding municipalities that also benefit. “We can no longer afford to provide free entertainment for all of them,” he said.

At the same time, said Gery, “we cannot market ourselves if we don’t have something that brings people here.”

“I haven’t seen how we benefit from this other than to showcase the borough, but if we keep doing it, we’ll go broke sooner or later,” said Gibson.

About the Author

Evan Brandt has worked for The Mercury since November 1997. His beat includes Pottstown, the surrounding townships and the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts, as well as other varied general topics like politics, the environment and education. Reach the author at ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
or follow Evan on Twitter: @PottstownNews.